The Trial and Flagellation with Other Studies in the Chester Cycle by F. M. Salter; W. W.GregReview by: John ButtThe Review of English Studies, Vol. 15, No. 57 (Jan., 1939), pp. 91-92Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/509728 .

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REVIEWS 91

Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, the Athenian " mechanics " in A Mid- summer Night's Dream, the citizens in Julius Ccesar, and the shepherds in A Winter's Tale have little in common with the boon companion of Prince Hal. Like Sir Toby Belch, he is the representative rather of the bohemian,free-living, free-thinking, anti-puritan section of the aristocracy, the predecessor of the roystering cavaliers and of the rakes of the Restoration.

Taken as a whole this book should be of particular value to students who wish to broaden their knowledge of the background of English literature. Such readers may well forgive or overlook the outbursts against democracy and the modern world which occasion- ally trouble the serenity of the " gardens and the gallant walks " of Professor Bond's domain of scholarly ease.

V. DE SOLA PINTO.

The Trial and Flagellation with Other Studies in the Chester Cycle. Edited by F. M. SALTER and W. W. GREG. The Malone Society Studies. 1935. Pp. viii+172.

THE Malone Society has taken a brief holiday from its accustomed fields, and printed the " Trial and Flagellation " play in the Chester cycle from a MS. discovered by Professor F. M. Salter in the Enrolment Book of the Coopers' company at Chester. The MS. was written on August 22, I599, by George Bellin, clerk to the Coopers' and Ironmongers' companies, the man who was already known to be the scribe of two MSS. of the complete cycle in the British Museum (Adds. 10305 and Harley 2013). Although the new MS. is of no very great textual importance, its relationship with those already discovered reopens the question of their genealogy. In his Sandars lectures, printed in The Library, 1914, Dr. Greg had suggested a relationship which postulated as many lost exemplars as there are surviving manuscripts. Professor Salter now disputes this conclusion, and suggests a closer affinity with the official register of plays which used to be kept in the Town Hall. But Dr. Greg takes the opportunity of an appendix to review Professor Salter's arguments, and rejects them in favour of those put forward in his edition of the " Antichrist " pageant (Oxford, 1935).

Professor Salter quotes lavishly from the Coopers' and the Ironmongers' accounts. He is able to show that the Coopers produced their play in I572 and

1574, but not from 1569 to I571,

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92 R. E. S., VOL. 15, 1939 (N9 57, JAN.)

nor in I575, in spite of injunctions from the mayor. And, more important, he is able to show that the plays of the " Flagellation " and of the " Crucifixion " were separate as early as 1422, and were probably not amalgamated until 1575, the year in which the last performances were held. It was previously believed that the amalgamated form, as it appears in Harley 2124, was the original.

The volume also contains the Manchester fragment of the Chester " Resurrection " and parallel texts of " Christ's Disputation with the Doctors " in tihe York and Chester cycles. Both are edited by Dr. Greg with full textual notes. To these are added the texts of the Lists and Banns, including a new List discovered by Professor Salter in Harley 21o4. This volume, therefore, contains all the principal documents, except the plays themselves, for the history of the Chester cycle. This being so, it is a pity that Professor Salter has not quoted his authority for his account of the route taken by the pageants. He writes [pp. 25-6]: " The entire distance travelled by the pageants can be walked in ten minutes [evidently Professor Salter takes rapid strides]: and there is an easy down- grade from the Abbey Gates to the High Cross, and from the High Cross to the Castle. The last stand was on the Roodee .. " This differs from all accounts known to me. These imply that the pageants proceeded from the Abbey Gates to the Cross, from the Cross to Watergate Street, thence to Bridge Street, presumably through Weaver Street or Nicholas Street and Whitefriars, and from Bridge Street, presumably by way of Pepper Street and Newgate Street, to Eastgate Street. The Castle and the Roodee lie well off this circular route. They are not mentioned in the Banns; nor is it at all likely that they were used as stations. Narrow as the principal streets are, the Rows, which flank them at a higher level, would allow the audience further standing room under cover. There was there- fore no need to seek an open space as far off as the Castle, which had no direct approach from the Cross until the nineteenth century, or on the Roodee, which would have involved a toilsome uphill journey for the returning pageants.

JOHN BUTT.

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